'To write the story of your life, you must first have had one.'
Inspired by his scandalous real-life affair with the flamboyant woman who called herself George Sand, Alfred de Musset's Confession is a searingly honest, passionate account of a young man's rite of passage. It tells the story of Octave, desperate to be more than an 'average man', who searches for happiness first as a debauched libertine, until his mistress, Elise, is unfaithful, and then in an austere life in the countryside, where he falls in love with the selfless Brigitte. But as he becomes consumed by insane jealousy and convinced that Brigitte will betray him, Octave brings about his own destruction. A vivid, opulent portrayal of obsession and despair, this is also a philosophical portrait of a man and his times, expressing the failed idealism of the Romantic generation of the early nineteenth century.
David Coward's vibrant translation is accompanied by an introduction, discussing de Musset's affair with Sand, how 'les Amants de Venise' became a source of both artistic inspiration and satire, and his work's place in the confessional genre. This edition contains a chronology and further reading.
Translated with an introduction and notes by David Coward
